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situations. Findings from postmodern research
are often found to be widely applicable, but the
intent in these studies focuses on the local.
We wish to build on Solomons interest in
elevating postmodernism to agenda status
within the field and continue the conversation
about postmodernism and instructional technology (IT) that others have started (Hlynka, 1995,
1996; Hlynka & Belland, 1991; Wilson, 1997;
Yeaman, 1994). We agree with Solomon that it is
important to develop common terminology surrounding postmodernism and to develop contexts for theory construction (p. 6); however, we
disagree, on various points, with Solomons
definition of postmodernism, the contributions
he suggests postmodernism can make to the
field, and his efforts to place postmodernism in
pre-existing IT categories. We think it is time to
move toward more fully applying postmodern
perspectives and practices in the design and research of educational technologies, and we will
do so here by discussing how postmodern
theories can contribute to IT and by offering
points of access for educational technologists.
Using a composite of experiences we have faced
as researchers and scholars, we will demonstrate
how two areas of postmodern thought,
postcolonialism and cultural studies, can be
used in IT research and development.
Commonly used IT instructional design
textbooks (Heinich, Molenda, Russell, & Smaldino, 2001; Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2001; Smith
& Ragan, 1999) tentatively dedicate small sections to issues of race, class, and gender in relation to instructional design; however, in our
view they do not offer instructional designers
adequate strategies for taking these difficult-todefine factors into consideration in their design
process. Our use of postmodern frameworks is
rooted in the position that IT, generally, has
failed to adequately integrate matters of race,
class, gender, ethnicity, and nationality in relation to learning in technology-mediated learning
environments. These are areas in which a great
deal of educational scholarship has been shaped
by postmodern perspectives (Cherryholmes,
1988; Giroux, 1994; Hill, McLaren, Cole, &
Rikowski, 1999; Ulmer, 1989; Usher & Edwards,
1996), not just as a call for a return to philosophical discourse that challenges our assumptions
Postmodern perspectives are interested in how technology shapes pedagogy and curriculum by asking
how particular technologies or delivery media frame
what is teachable and unteachable. Rather
than
focusing on how students use technology, a
postmodern researcher might address issues of
identity and consider how particular representations exclude certain students while inviting others. While IT researchers have
historically asked what impact educational technology has on learning efficiency and made
media-delivery comparisons, postmodern IT researchers might take a different approach by asking how technology and media inform the
larger context of the learners life in relation to
learning. A postmodern IT researcher might
engage in a project on educational uses of the Internet by focusing on how students react to certain appeals that commercial Websites address
to them.
Postmodern IT research is concerned with curriculum. Solomons vision of postmodernism is
often constrained by the traditional categories of
IT inquiry that may not include the full body of
curriculum research. While Solomons analysis
of the benefits of postmodernism to the IT field
are not without merit, we suggest that
postmodern perspectives could expand what is
viewed as IT by increasingly integrating broader
notions of curriculum. Postmodern researchers
tend to take an expansive view of what constitutes curriculum. One example of this
perspective is the curriculum reconceptualist
movement (Pinar, 1975; Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery & Taubman, 1995), which pursues two complementary foci: one, influenced by the work of
Dewey (1938), looks at how individuals construct knowledge and how curriculum can be
used to enhance the experience of the individual; the other examines how curriculum influences and contributes to social justice and
equity. The combination of these two perspectives is a postmodern curriculum (Doll, 1993;
Slattery, 1995) that relies on autobiographical
understandings of knowledge, multiple representations during learning (i.e., arts-based inquiry), and responsiveness to multiple
intersections of race, class, gender, and ethnicity,
among others.
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Postmodern IT is self-reflexive. This means that
Postmodern IT researchers and instructional
designers are aware of and take into consideration their own social positions, assumptions,
and claims about technology and learning.
Solomon mentions this in a paragraph beginning Poststructural thinking in IT (p. 11). We
believe that postmodern researchers and instructional designers should continually strive
to recognize and question their beliefs about
what is being studied and designed and how
those beliefs shape the findings of their research
and design. While Solomon, citing Richey (1998)
and others, calls these beliefs ones philosophical orientation (p. 8), we caution against pursuing only an abstract discourse of philosophy that
is difficult for instructional designers and
teachers to apply. We suggest that members of
the field consider weaving self-reflexivity into
all levels of practice and training by developing
questioning strategies that consider social and
ethical concerns as well as instructional goals.
Postmodern perspectives are concerned with
addressing issues of social justice and
democracy. Among other things, this represents
a concern for multicultural issues and creating
engaging and culturally relevant educational experiences for underrepresented and underserved groups. Postmodern perspectives are
well equipped to address the complexities of the
issues and circumstances surrounding access to
technology that have become known as the digital divide. Related to this is the question of who
has access to the knowledge that is taught using
a particular technology or medium. Although
Solomon notes that postmodernism shares
philosophical similarities with critical theory (p.
12), we hold that critical perspectives are more
than just criticism; they are also appeals for social justice.
Postmodern perspectives are critical of theoretical
and methodological systems that uncritically favor
particular points of view or belief systems. Related
to this, postmodern perspectives are skeptical of
traditional researchers operationalizing of
methodology, which can cast too narrow a net of
inquiry when studying questions in a
postmodern world where complexity and multidimensionality are the norm. We are not arguing for those engaging in IT research to
8
eliminate the practice of operationalizing; our
concern regards when these operationalizations
become institutionalized, go unquestioned, and
are subsequently applied to larger contexts than
those for which they were originally intended.
Postmodern researchers favor multidisciplinary and
interdisciplinary approaches that are guided by complex ecological, rather than systemic, questions, instead of questions that artificially carve out a narrow
area of inquiry within a learning system. The ecology of a learning system includes factors that are
not traditionally considered in a systemic learning environment analysis, for example, how factors such as race and gender are defined in a
particular situation. In others words, an ecological approach challenges the assumptions that
define what have been called dependent and independent variables by questioning the distinction between the two. This means that
postmodern research projects often span
academic subject, aesthetic, and institutional
boundaries. Postmodern IT researchers who are
concerned with the context and ecology of a particular problem draw from areas as diverse as
anthropology, educational psychology, art, history, political science, curriculum theory, information sciences, and cybernetics. In offering an
ecological model, we would like to advance the
discussion a little further than Solomon does
when he calls for a pluralistic incorporation of
disciplines into IT (p. 13). An ecological model
recognizes that there exist hierarchies of disciplines and that all do not stand on equal footing within a particular study. Pluralism suggests
an equality that, we maintain, does not and
should not exist. By recognizing this hierarchy
of disciplines, we propose that postmodern IT
researchers continue to develop languages to
name and support their reasons for employing
multiple disciplines.
Postmodern researchers are concerned with language
and meaning (often broadly referred to as discourse), and with what research, learning, designs,
and teaching are possible in relation to particular social languages. For example, there are particular
discourses for instructional design, for research,
for various communities, and for the technical
arena. These discourses have effects on how
9
viously rigid models of understanding with
media. Cultural studies span a variety of disciplines, methods, paradigms, and perspectives,
many of which were identified by Solomon as
part of the foundation of postmodernism (pp. 9
12), including literary theory, sociology, history,
linguistics, semiotics, feminisms, philosophy,
anthropology, and psychoanalysis (During,
1999; Grossberg, Nelson, & Treichler, 1992;
Turner, 1996). Postmodern sensibilities inform
many of the areas that traditional critical
theories have often neglected in cultural studies
such as Euro-centrism and sexuality (Britzman,
1995a).
Earlier we stated that current instructional
design texts do not adequately address the concept of culture. Cultural studies provides a
developed body of theory and inquiry relevant
for instructional designers and educational technologists who must design for schools and
learning contexts that are increasingly culturally
diverse. Additionally, cultural studies offers
new perspectives for instructional designers
who must work with growing numbers of
geographically dispersed distance learners. Cultural studies methods and theories draw on
postmodern notions of the contingent and
situated construction of knowledge to offer instructional designers lenses to see instruction in
terms not only of a learning system but also as a
language system in which instability is the norm
(Britzman, 1998; Ellsworth, 1997). We contend
that this is a productive space and can be put to
use by instructional designers by providing
them with tools (i.e., discourse analysis, textual
analysis, ethnography) to study the dynamic
ways that individuals make sense of their learning in hypermediated, postmodern contexts.
Such an approach would help resolve the mismatch that has emerged between modernist certainty (e.g., high stakes testing) and postmodern
uncertainty (i.e., highly contextual events and
meaning, and rapid social change and technological innovation).
Postmodern perspectives allow for, even encourage, a complexity on which traditional
models of design and inquiry foreclose. A cultural studies perspective on IT does not suggest
a utopian fix to the problems of education, but
it does give instructional technologists a dif-
10
ferent set of tools for approaching the complexity of the postmodern world. Developing
learning goals, plans, or designs in terms of the
designer, and granting the designer or instructor
a privileged place can foreclose learning that occurs in ways that the designer does not anticipate.
Cultural-studies approaches to
instructional design take into consideration both
the cultural and social background of a designer
and researcher, how that person understands,
learns, and assumes, but do not try to pass those
social and cultural perspectives on to the learner
as the only way of understanding the world. In
the following section we provide an example of
how cultural studies can be used in IT research.
Research Example
between each component of the research problem, including existing curriculum, classroom,
school, community culture, and technical considerations. The researcher would be interested
not only in how and what is taught, but also in
how students put this knowledge to use in their
everyday lives. A postmodern researchers concerns often extend past the walls of the classroom.
A possible research question that would
emerge from such interests is:
How can technology be integrated into a social studies curriculum in such a way that the
design takes into consideration the cultural
positions of students, teachers, and surrounding community, the existing curriculum, the characteristics of the technology,
and popular culture while working to avoid
assumptions about technology, culture,
learning, and what a social studies curriculum should be that foreclose on multiple
ways of knowing?
11
portunities to teach knowledge that challenges
ones sense of self in relation to others (Butler,
1990). In this particular study, sources of data
might include student productions such as Websites, digital video productions representing
Somalian-American culture, digital imaging
projects, essays, poetry, drama, or traditional
forms of Midwestern, African American and
Somalian culture. The flexibility and insights offered by a postmodern researchers considerations of the postmodern condition of cultural
heterogeneity, the Internet, rapid social changes
and technological innovation are most helpful
when working with multiple media (i.e., multiple channels of meaning), multiple data sources,
multiple social positions, and flexible notions of
curriculum.
Methods. Some of the methods that postmodern
research might use include discourse analysis
(Fairclough, 1992; Gee, 1996), textual analysis
(Marshall, 1992), ethnography (Rose, 1990), and
narrative analysis. Discourse analysis is a
method of analyzing written, spoken, visual, or
audio language and examining what that language makes thinkable, teachable, and learnable
within particular social settings. Textual
analysis is particularly helpful in looking at the
structures and representation within mediated
educational materials such as Websites, videos,
and CD-ROMs. Ethnographic methods immerse
postmodern IT researchers into the learning environment under consideration. This allows researchers to understand the characteristics of the
learners and the subtleties of the learning environment. Narrative analysis represents an approach to research as the investigation of the
lived experience of teachers and students. Narrative analysis allows researchers to look for
recurring patterns or sets of patterns in the data.
It is important that postmodern research not be
equated with qualitative research in general.
While postmodern researchers often do utilize
many qualitative methods, most qualitative research could not be considered postmodern.
Much qualitative research, by its very nature, is
governed by specific rules regarding the roles
and definition of researcher subject and data.
Data Analysis. Once the data of direct observationcurriculum documentation, reflective
12
journals, and student projectshave been
gathered, a postmodern researcher would use
methods like discourse analysis and narrative
analysis to create an evolving description of the
classroom and curriculum that would provide
points of reference for the design of the curriculum. For example, the analysis might reveal
that students in the class understand historical
events as the expression of a tension between
two binary sides (i.e., right and wrong, local and
foreign, good and bad). A postmodern perspective on history assumes that history varies according to the biases and interests of the person
telling that history and that there are never just
two sides of a historical event. The curriculum
and projects designed to address this observation might take into consideration traditional accounts of history that appear on a standardized
test while helping the students to contextualize
the history into their own lives. The Internet,
with its multiple and constantly changing sources of information and communication, could
provide the hub for such contextualization.
Applications. Perhaps the most difficult aspect
of postmodern perspectives for traditional researchers to accept is that postmodern researchers develop highly contextual and
contingent conclusions. This is based on the assumption that learning includes unpredictable
and uncontrollable factors. Postmodern researchers are skeptical of making conclusions
that can be easily generalized. This, of course,
raises the question, Why bother performing this
kind of research if the results cant be generalized? In our reading of postmodern perspectives, we believe that generalizations can be
gathered from postmodern research; however,
researchers must be reflective in how they
generalize. To return to our example, a conclusion or result of the study might be the design
of a high school social studies curriculum that
takes into account and challenges students assumptions about technology and history, and
social suppositions about race, class, and gender
while still preparing students to excel on standardized tests. While such a conclusion or design
could not easily be generalized to another context, the approach (eclectic, interdisciplinary,
reflective) and assumptions (contingent) are
CONCLUSION
ADDITIONAL READINGS
For those interested in postmodern approaches to IT, we offer the following list of
authors, some of whom are mentioned in
Solomons article, categorized by general area,
in addition to the citations listed in this
response. This list is not exhaustive and should
be considered as a starting point for postmodern
inquiry in IT.
Foundations of
Ethnography
Media and Cultural Studies (Ien Ang, Julie DAcci, John Fiske, Lawrence Grossberg, Stuart
Hall, Douglas Kellner, David Morley)
Postmodernism,
Postmodernism
and
Pedagogy
(Elizabeth
Ellsworth)
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